Many years ago, the hospitality industry developed a plan that would enable them to charge customers for telephone calls when the customers were staying at their place of business. This plan included systems of various types. One system included a private branch exchange (PBX) connected to other telephone switches in a circuit-based network. The PBX would reside on the premise of the hotel, motel, or lodge to provide telephone service to the guests that stayed on the premise. The PBX would collect billing information for various types of telephone calls made by the guests to enable the business to present a telephone bill to the guest upon completion of the guest's stay.
Another system developed by the hospitality industry involved having a telephone switch operated by a service provider collect and manage telephone traffic associated with customers staying at the hotel, motel, or lodge. Again, the telephone switch was in a circuit-based network. The telephone switch might have one or more adjunct devices to support it that would operate to keep track of the telephone charges from the specific hotel, motel, or lodge. With this system, the hotel, motel, or lodge could have all of its telephone lines connect to the telephone switch or could have a concentrating device multiplex the lines onto trunks that connected to the telephone switch.
In either case of the PBX or the directly-connected premise lines to the telephone switch, applications handled billing data in a circuit-based network. Many of the applications included and still do include station message-detail recording (SMDR). Unfortunately, businesses like hotels, motels, or lodges would like call detail recording in a packet-based network in a real-time basis, but without having to expend funds for a PBX. They would also like to control and manage CDRs from their customers' (guests) phone usage rather than obtain this data or a portion thereof from a service provider that stores and manages CDRs at a central office containing a telephone switch. Therefore, a solution is needed that provides a CDR device that resides at a premise such as a hotel, a motel, or a lodge which is not a PBX. The CDR device should record telephone calls and set telephone charges of the guests staying at the hotel, motel, or lodge.